10th Cir. Rejects Request to Temporarily Halt Keystone XL

By Betty Wang, JD on October 15, 2013 3:07 PM

Last week, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's ruling when they refused to temporarily halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, reports The Associated Press. The pipeline would carry Canadian TransCanada's tar-sands oil from Oklahoma all the way to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

The plaintiffs, the Sierra Club, Clean Energy Future of Oklahoma, and the East Texas Sub Regional Planning Commission sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, alleging that their approval of the construction of an oil pipeline violated the National Environment Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), posing environmental hazards.

that its threatened injury outweighs the injury the opposing party will suffer under the injunction; and

that the injunction would not be adverse to the public interest.

Balancing Injuries

The court ultimately based their determination on the third prong of the test -- whether or not the threatened injury outweighs the injury the opposing party would suffer due to the injunction. The Tenth found that, through their balancing test, the harm that an injunction on the pipeline would cause was more significant. The financial loss that TransCanada would incur would be great -- nearly hundreds of thousands of dollars every day.

In 2-1 decision, the decision ultimately sided with TransCanada (and the U.S. Army Corps by extension), in balancing the financial harm against the threatened environmental injuries, which consisted of potentially incalculable damage.

In favor of TransCanada, the court pointed out that Sierra Club, et al failed to demonstrate how the pipeline would have a significant impact. The Tenth affirmed the district court's denial of the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction.

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U.S. Tenth Circuit features news and information from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which hears appeals from U.S. District Courts in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. This blog also features news that would be of interest to legal professionals practicing in the 10th Circuit. Have a comment or tip? Write to us.